and intermarried. The
progress of the country has taken some of us and hurled us up, while it
has seized others of us and smashed us down; but we should try to get
over that when it comes to human intercourse."

"That's what I was doing when I asked her to join our Friendly Society."

"Pff! The deuce you were! I know your friendly societies. Keep those who
are down down. Help the humble to be humbler by making them obsequious."

"You know nothing at all about it," she declared, with spirit. "In
trying to make things better you're content to spin theories, while we
put something into practice."

He snapped the door of the second lamp with a little bang. "Put
something into practice, with the result that people resent it."

"With the result that Rosie Fay resented it; but she's not a fair
example. She's proud and rebellious and intense. I never saw any one
just like her."

"You probably never saw any one who had to be like her because they'd
had her luck. Look here, Lois," he said, with sudden earnestness, "I
want you to be a friend to that girl."

She opened her eyes in mild surprise at his intensity. "There's nothing
I should like better, if I knew how."

"But you do know how. It's easy enough. Treat her as you would a girl in
your own class--Elsie Darling, for instance."

"It's not so simple as that. When Elsie Darling came back after five or
six years abroad mamma and I drove into town and called on her. She
wasn't in, and we left our cards. Later, we invited her to lunch or to
dinner. I should be perfectly willing to go through the same formalities
with Miss Fay--only she'd think it queer. It would be queer. It would be
queer because she hasn't got--what shall I say?--she hasn't got the
social machinery for that kind of ceremoniousness. The machinery means
the method of approach, and with people who have to live as she does
it's the method of approach that presents the difficulty. It's not as
easy as it looks."

"Very well, then; let us admit that it's hard. The harder it is the more
it's the job for you."

There was an illuminating quality in her smile that atoned for lack of
beauty. "Oh, if you put it in that way--"

"I do put it in that way," he declared, with an earnestness toned down
by what was almost wistfulness. "There are so many things in which I
want help, Lois--and you're the one to help me."

She held out her hand with characteristic frankness. "I'll do anything I
can, Thor. Just tell me